


Redefinition

by jadziadrgnrdr



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Family, Gen, Racist Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-05
Updated: 2014-05-05
Packaged: 2018-01-22 00:21:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1569143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jadziadrgnrdr/pseuds/jadziadrgnrdr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zayn's father is not sharing the highest heights of Zayn's career with him and Zayn wants to know why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Redefinition

**Author's Note:**

  * For [writeivywrite](https://archiveofourown.org/users/writeivywrite/gifts).



> This is another fic I had languishing on my computer based on some big event in the life of One Direction. I started this the afternoon of the This Is Us premier and noticed Yaser was not on the red carpet.
> 
> Thanks Brie for the beta! Gifting to Ivy because we've had some long discussions about this in DM and those discussions fueled this work.

Zayn presses the call button before he can over think this. He doesn't know when he'll have another relatively quiet moment before they are shuffled on to the next work responsibility. Right now there are only 19 people in the room with him. He’d counted. They are all engaged in their own things, and his hair and makeup were done so no one was touching him, or fussing over him at this second. The phone rings three times and then, 

“Hello, sunshine.” Zayn couldn’t help but smile. Hearing the voices of his loved ones has a way of cutting through any mood he might be in.

“Hello mum, you alright?” 

“Yes, I’m well. I’m just finishing up dinner.” Zayn can faintly hear his mother attending to her pots and the low murmur of the small kitchen TV, probably playing her recording of EastEnders for the day.

“What are you making?” He asks. It’s a minor cruelty knowing he’s going to be eating whatever they have down in Sarah’s Kitchen, while his family is having lamb tikka. He swallows his jealousy and gets on with the purpose of his call.

 

Zayn probably wasn’t supposed to notice – or rather – he wasn’t supposed to say anything but when Myrna confirmed his mother and sisters for the shoot the day after tomorrow without his father he had to call. 

When Spurlock first pitched the idea of including the house buying process in the film, Yaser was distant. He’d already made vague noises about how this was a busy time of the year for him, like the work of an car mechanic was seasonal. As with many things that weighed on his mind, Zayn discussed his father’s seeming reluctance to appear on camera with Louis while they smoked a j in the back of Bus 1.

“Maybe he’s feeling, I don’t know… he’s never been able to buy you all a nice house and like … with me mum, it’s different. It’s different with mums .” Louis says with a weak shrug.

Zayn frowned at the short in his hand, taking a long pull and handed it back to Louis who has trouble gripping it with his fingers. Zayn closed his eyes and and settled in for a good think. 

Yaser is a proud man but he never was one to equate monetary things with manhood. Work hard. Love your family. Do the right thing. Make your own path. Love Allah. That was manhood. His father never asked for anything, but he didn’t generally turn down practical things that Zayn offered him with his newfound wealth. The little West Lane house in the middle of the block was the only house he and his siblings knew. His mother and father worked hard every day to maintain the rent and utilities. The crayon creatures scrawled across walls never fully faded even after an entire Saturday was spent scrubbing the walls and baseboards. It was the place where the door jam in the small living room held the little tick marks of Zayn and his sister’s growth over the years. There was nothing wrong with their house, and Zayn was as protective of it as he was with any bits of things that pertained to his family. 

When Zayn had told his parents that he was going to buy the family a new house, his father had been _happy_ there wasn’t even a moment where his eyes shone with any amount of shame or jealousy. He held Zayn’s face between his hands, and spoke about how proud he was, with the gleam of unshed tears in his eyes. He’d remarked about how much of an honor it had been to see him grow into the man he’d become.

“No, bro. I don’t think it’s that.” Zayn had said simply. Today he wonders if he somehow read everything wrong.

 

“I just got off the phone with Myrna from scheduling and she’s saying that dad is not going to be at the shoot, now?” Zayn asks.

Zayn doesn’t mind being the go-between for his family and the filmmakers. Everyone’s family posed some amount of rustling round, but his family had never been so closely linked with his job before. Usually it was his escape from this brand new world of grown up responsibility, not a part of it. 

“Oh yes, your father…he has to work. He wont’ be there, sweetheart.” The light giddy tone she used to greet him is all but gone. 

“Mum, can you put him on?”

“Zain…”

“Please _ammi_ ,”

Zayn hears some rustling around before Trisha calls Yaser to the phone. 

 

There is tension in Yaser’s voice from their hello. It’s apparent he knows why Zayn wants to talk to him, so there is no point in getting weighed down in pleasantries. Zayn physically sits up straighter even though his father can’t see him; he wants to talk to him like an adult, a man.

“So what’s this about you working day after tomorrow?”

“Yeah, it’s so crazy lately…. We have some guys out. I need to cover two shifts.”

“It’s just that this has been planned for months at this point.” Zayn works to keep his voice even, he doesn’t want his father to think he’s accusing him of something, he just wants things to be the way that they should.

“Yeah I know, but I have to work. It was sudden.” Yaser quickly says. “Your mum is ready though. She got her and the girls’ hair done with Auntie Fadila. It will be just fine, Zain. Don’t worry so much.” The following laugh and affected light tone does irritate Zayn a bit. What was the point of acknowledging Zayn’s manhood in the past if he was going to pull this _‘everything is fine, child’_ tone on him now?

Zayn breathes in and out slowly. This was the man who taught him how to keep a steady hand when sketching, the man who taught him how to color inside the lines, then told him he didn’t have to if he didn’t want to. He deserves to be mentioned when his mother is mentioned. Always. He deserves to be present, to be visible. 

Zayn has a thought and decides to test it. 

“Well when the movie comes out I know there will be a big to do, a premier and all that. Won’t it be strange if you’re not in the movie when people see you at the premier?”

Zayn’s father is silent.

“Dad, I don’t want this.”

“I know you don’t, but remember last August with Khadijah?”

How could Zayn ever forget? She called him crying so hard she could barely speak. Zayn had never felt so useless in his life. There he was thousands of miles away trying to sooth her the best way he knew how and trying to get her to tell him what was wrong. She had made the mistake of posting her picture with Perrie online and all of a sudden the little whisperings and downright slurs he endured trebled. 

He had retreated then. He decided he’d had just about enough of it all and deleted his twitter account. The label had called and asked him to please reconsider, but it wasn’t until Khadijah’s tearful confused “The things they were saying Zain!” repeated over and over again that Zayn decided to come back. She and his cousins and aunties that came to her defense didn’t’ deserve to wear targets just because his detractors could no longer get to him.

Zayn had faced it all before back in school, but the difference was that school was just a few kids. The online taunting was coming from all over the world. Thousands of anonymous people said vile things about him, his religion and most shockingly his little sisters and cousins. Then the next day, a video showing him inviting a girl back to his room appeared on the net. On the bright side everyone who was focused on his little cousins all but dropped that crusade and went after him with a viciousness fueled by vindication. _“See we knew he was garbage all along!.”_

Zayn put his phone down in disgust and climbed into bed.

“I don’t…” Zayn began, then stopped, cleared his throat, and began again. “Dad you can change your mind. I don’t mind fighting for this. ”

“Oh Zayn, I know you don't mind fighting, but you shouldn’t have to.” Yaser replied sadly.

“I’m not ashamed of who I am, abba.” 

“I know that too. You know that I’m very, very proud of you right, Zain?”

“Yeah,” Zayn’s Adam’s apple is jumping but he manages that one word. 

He remembered coming home with bruises and one phrase on repeat in his mind _“you dirty p*ki.”_ . He remembers how his stomach twisted when his niece, Aminah placed her small hands next to Zayn’s larger after school one day and sighed, _“I wish I was as light as you, you’re lucky, Uncle Zayn.”_ He remembers how it felt at once like sweet relief and giving up when his parents signed transfer papers for he and Doniya to switch schools. 

He remembered his first trip to America, how excited he’d been. He couldn’t sleep and he texted with the boys all night. It wasn’t even that scary because they were all together like brothers. Only he was the one called aside by the TSA agent. He was the only one pulled away and told, _“you don’t belong with them.”_ He told himself he understood. They were just doing their job after all. His name was similar to another ( _dirty p*ki_ ) name on the list. 

He remembered the first time he saw his face photoshopped onto a picture of Osama Bin Laden as a ‘funny’ joke by one of his ‘fans’. Maybe she wasn’t his fan after all. Maybe she was a fan of the band One Direction as a unit but barely tolerated the dark one.

“No one can take away who you are, _beyta_. It doesn’t matter what they say or what punches they throw. I am still your father. I am still here. “

Zayn's eyes hurt and he’s actually startled when a tear falls against the dove on his hand sitting in his lap. 

Zayn sniffs and wipes his face. This is not his decision. It’s his father’s. 

“I’m tired, Abba.”

“Get some sleep, Zayn.”

“Not that kind of…”

“I know.” There is silence for a beat before, “Be well, you're mum needs me to set the table for dinner. I look forward to seeing you really soon, son.”

“Insha’Allah,” Zayn whispers. He presses the End button and sits looking out of the window for a time. 

Harry comes over to him, red faced and panting after chasing Niall all around the studio. He’s shimmying in Zayn’s periphery to get his attention until he stops suddenly and sits beside him. 

“You alright, mate?” He asks. 

“I’m fine.” Zayn answers tersely then looks over at Harry’s concerned face. “Home stuff, you know how it is.”

“Yeah,” Harry sighs and produces a tangerine from… somewhere and starts to peel it. They sit in silence for a while. Harry offers him a section and Zayn takes it more for something to do while he sits there than out of any real desire for the fruit. 

In the past, Zayn might have left the room and found somewhere quiet to be with less people and worked himself up into a proper brood. It’s true that the boys don’t understand – can never understand – but he also doesn’t want to be alone either. It’s enough to know that somebody, four somebodies, always give a shit what he’s feeling even if understanding is elusive. 

Harry gives him a few more sections of his tangerine and just about when it’s done, Paul is calling the band to assemble, it’s time to greet the woman from some online magazine Zayn didn’t quite catch the name of in the morning debrief.

“You wanna talk about it,” Harry asks quietly as they are making their way over to the others.

“Nah,” Zayn replies. “Best to just get on with it yeah?” 

So they do.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading this and know that I meant no disrespect to Zayn, his family or his culture. I understand that I'm different from him in race/culture/gender/continent and although I can relate to racism and othering on a personal level, Zayn's blues ain't like mine necessarily. It's just an idea that popped into my head.


End file.
